Recently, as medical accidents caused by infection during a dental treatment was reported through broadcasting, an interest in dental treatment tools and environments of a consultation room are being increased.
According to information, which has been known till now, including the above reported data, there are 3 million to 4 million bacteria of more than 500 kinds per □ in a human being's mouth, and 10 million to 32 million bacteria per □ in a patient, who has an inflammation in his or her mouth, and in a terrible case, molds and staphylococci are found in the mouth.
In addition, even though 840,000 bacteria exist in the inside air of the consultation room of a dental clinic, since precaution or post measure is not took thoroughly, cases that patients get AIDS or are infected by germs frequently break out.
Korean Patent Nos. 457,467 and 457,860 disclose sterilizers to sterilize a handpiece, which is a representative dental treatment tool, to solve the contamination of the dental treatment instruments. The patented sterilizers can sterilize treatment tools, which were in contact with a patient's mouth, and disinfect bacteria spreading in the consultation room through the treatment tools.
As shown in FIG. 1, a unit chair 10 generally used for a dental treatment includes a chair body 12, a treatment tool holder 14, an illumination lamp 16, and a cuspidor 20.
As shown in FIG. 2, the cuspidor includes a wide entrance portion 22, a discharge hole 24 for discharging contaminants, which the patient spits into the entrance portion 22, to the outside of the cuspidor, and a drain pipe 26 connected to the discharge hole.
Furthermore, the unit chair 10 further includes a suction (not shown) mounted on a side thereof for sucking the contaminants, such as spit and blood, gathered in the patient's mouth during the dental treatment, and the contaminants sucked into the suction are discharged to the drain pipe through an additional pipe.
However, contaminants such as biological tissues, saliva, tooth fragments or prosthetic material powder inevitably generated during the dental treatment process remain in the patient mouth, and such contaminants are spat out to the cuspidor or discharged to the outside through the suction during a process of cleaning the patient's mouth. So, the cuspidor and the drain pipe connected to the cuspidor or the suction are contaminated.
To prevent contamination of the surface of the cuspidor and the drain pipes connected to the cuspidor and the suction, it is general to sterilize the surface of the cuspidor or the suction with an antiseptic solution. In addition, Korean Utility Model Registration No. 403,843 discloses an antibacterial cuspidor containing nano-silver material for preventing infection through the nano-silver material coated thereon.
However, the prior art has several problems in that if a sterilized cleaning solution is used, the cleaning solution mixed with foreign substances may cause environmental pollution, and in that there is a great adverse criticism against the sterilization effect of the nano-silver coating and it is difficult to obtain a perfect sterilization effect just by coating the cuspidor with the nano-silver material.